Same-sex families’ rights and the European Union: incompatible or promising relationship?

This article deals with the role of the European Union (EU) in enhancing rights of same-sex couples and their children (‘rainbow families’). It describes EU actions in this area and examines what influence they can have within the Member States, using the Czech Republic as a case study. The article argues that, despite the EU’s general lack of competence in family law matters, the relationship between the EU and rainbow families’ rights, in theory, no longer appears incompatible, but rather promising, as the EU bodies have found ways to address these issues. In practical terms. However, the question raised in this article’s title cannot be definitively answered without data from the Member States. Here, the findings from the Czech Republic demonstrate that the EU law’s potential has not been fulfilled in practice yet. Therefore, it would be too soon to celebrate the EU as a significant player in the rainbow families’ rights arena. As the Czech example suggests, if the EU wants to truly enhance rainbow families’ rights, it will probably need to be more explicit about that because the Member States, particularly their national courts, may not find or pave the way to utilize EU law themselves.